Paklenica National Park: The Best Walks, Trails and 2026 Prices

Paklenica has a reputation as a climbers' park, and the 712 m face of Anića kuk with its 600 marked routes is the reason. But the park's own figure is 150 to 200 km of walking trails, and most of them follow a canyon floor from sea level. That is why it is on a walking holiday and not only on a climbing trip.

This guide covers the trails as a walker uses them: the paved valley path, the cave and the mountain hut, and the summit day that most walkers skip. It ends with the tickets and seasons, and the 16 km day our National Parks week spends here.

Why Walk Paklenica National Park

Paklenica is where the Velebit range meets the Adriatic. Two torrent canyons, Velika and Mala Paklenica, cut back into the southern face of the mountain from the coast road at Starigrad, and the park protects 95 km² around them, since 19 October 1949. The mountain rises from the sea with no foothills, so a walk that starts at 30 m can end at 1,757 m on Vaganski vrh, the highest point in Velebit.

Most visitors never go that high, and do not need to. The Velika Paklenica canyon path is a broad, partly paved trail between walls more than 700 m tall. The two places it leads to, the Manita peć cave and the mountain hut, are both reachable and back in a day. The upper park, with its beech forests listed by UNESCO in 2017, is a second and harder day.

The other reason to come is the contrast. Starigrad-Paklenica is a beach village, the canyon mouth is a ten-minute drive from the sea, and a walker can finish a 16 km mountain day with a swim. No other Croatian national park puts a summit and a beach this close together.

What You Need to Know at a Glance

• Park: 95 km², founded 1949, two canyons (Velika and Mala Paklenica) on the south face of Velebit

• Trails: 150 to 200 km, marked with red-and-white waymarks; the Velika Paklenica path is partly paved

• Landmarks: Manita peć cave at 570 m, about 1 h 30 from the car park; the Paklenica mountain hut at the head of the canyon; Vaganski vrh 1,757 m

• Tickets: one-, three- and five-day passes in seasonal price bands; the cave is a separate ticket; 5% off in the park's web shop

• Season: April to June and September to October for the canyons; summer is hot below the forest

• Our day: 16 km and 1,050 m on day 3 of the Croatia National Parks Walking Holiday

Paklenica Hiking Trails, From Canyon Floor to Summit

The trails stack in layers. The canyon floor is the walk everyone does, a spur climbs to the cave, and the path continues to the hut. Above the hut the ridge trails run to the summits.

How far you go decides how hard the day is, not which trail you pick. The five entries below are numbered for navigation, not ranked.

1. The Velika Paklenica Canyon Path

• Distance: about 6 km each way from the car park to the hut

• Time: 2 hours each way

• Climb: the hut sits about 450 m above the entrance

• Ground: paved, then stony path; no shade until the forest

The main canyon is 14 km long and the trail follows its floor from the entrance at Starigrad, between walls that climb to over 700 m on both sides. The first stretch is the climbers' gallery: Anića kuk, 712 m of limestone, rises on the left with around 600 marked routes on it, and on a spring weekend the base is busy with ropes.

Past the climbing sector the canyon narrows and the path enters beech and black pine, and the walking gets easier as the shade arrives. The canyon path is a walk, not a climb, with a steady grade the whole way, and the forester's house at Lugarnica, about an hour in, sells drinks in season. Our National Parks week walks this path on day 3 and returns the same way.

2. Manita Peć

• Distance: a spur off the canyon path, about 1 h 30 from the car park

• Elevation: 570 m

• Ground: stepped trail, steep in places

• Best for: the one detour every walker should make

Manita peć is the only show cave among the park's 115 known caves, open to visitors since 1937 and lit for guided tours. The spur leaves the canyon path on the left and climbs the north wall in zigzags to the entrance at 570 m, with the whole canyon opening out below on the way up.

The cave is 9°C inside all year, so a layer goes in the pack even in July. Visits are guided and run on set days in season, and the cave carries its own ticket on top of the park entry, so check the park's calendar before building a day around it. Our day 3 includes the climb to the cave.

3. The Paklenica Mountain Hut

• Distance: about 6 km from the car park

• Time: 2 hours

• Elevation: about 480 m, at the head of the canyon

• Best for: the turning point of a canyon day, or the base for a summit day

Planinarski dom Paklenica, the Šime Sorić hut, sits where the canyon opens into the upper valley, in a meadow with the ridge above it. For a walker it is the natural end of the valley: lunch on the terrace, then back down the canyon in the afternoon light, which is the shape of our day 3.

For a hiker it is the start. Everything above the hut is a mountain day, with the summits three to four hours further and no water on the way, and the hut is where those days begin at dawn. It has dormitory beds and a kitchen in season, and it is the only accommodation inside the park.

4. Mala Paklenica

• Distance: about 10 km for the loop from Seline

• Time: 4 to 5 hours

• Ground: unpaved, rocky, with short scrambles in the narrows

• Best for: a second day, without the crowds

The smaller canyon starts at Seline, the village east of Starigrad, and is everything the big one is not: narrow, unpaved, unlit and quiet. The path picks its way up the torrent bed through the narrows, where the walls close to a few metres apart, and climbs out to join the upper trails.

Mala Paklenica is the canyon for a second visit, once the main path has been walked. It needs proper boots and a dry day, because the narrows carry water after rain, and it has no cave, no hut and no drinks on the way. A loop back over the ridge to Velika Paklenica makes a full day.

5. Vaganski Vrh and Sveto Brdo

• Distance: a full day from the hut, 20 km or more with the return

• Elevation: Vaganski vrh 1,757 m, Sveto brdo 1,753 m

• Ground: karst ridge, exposed, no water

• Best for: hikers with a night at the hut

Vaganski vrh is the roof of Velebit and Sveto brdo its twin four metres lower, and the two stand at the head of the park above the beech forests that UNESCO listed in 2017. From the hut the trail climbs through the forest onto the bare karst of the ridge, where the whole Adriatic coast and the islands of Pag and Rab lie below.

This is a hiking day, not a walking day, and it is the one part of Paklenica our walking week leaves out. It needs an early start from the hut, a full day's water and a settled forecast, because the bura wind hits the ridge first. Our own hut-to-hut week walks the northern half of the same range on the Premužić Path. For the summits and the rest of Velebit, our sister brand's guide to hiking in Croatia is the place to plan from.

Our Day in the Park

Day 3 of our Croatia National Parks Walking Holiday is Paklenica, between Plitvice on day 2 and Krka on day 4. It walks the Velika Paklenica canyon path from the car park to the mountain hut, takes the spur to Manita peć, and returns down the canyon. That is 16 km and 1,050 m of climbing, the second hardest day of the week after Biokovo.

The day is walked from Starigrad, where the week sleeps in a hotel rather than the hut, so the pack carries only water, lunch and a layer for the cave. Luggage stays behind. The climbing is front-loaded, most of it in the first two hours, and the return is downhill in the shade of the afternoon walls.

• Distance: 16 km, out and back on the canyon path with the cave spur

• Climb: 1,050 m, the second biggest day of the week

• Route: Starigrad car park, Anića kuk, Manita peć, the mountain hut, and back

Walkers who want the whole park in one week combine it with the walks page's other entries: Plitvice's boardwalks two days before, Krka's cascades the day after. The week is level 3 of 5 and runs from May to October.

When to Walk Paklenica

April to June and September to October are the canyon months. The lower canyon has no shade until the forest, and the limestone walls store the heat, so a July midday in the climbing sector is hard work even on the flat. Spring adds water in the torrent bed and flowers on the karst; autumn adds the warmest sea of the year for the swim afterwards.

The summits are a shorter season, roughly late May to September, because the ridge holds snow into spring and the bura, the cold northeast wind, can close it at any time of year. Our National Parks week runs from May to October, and the Paklenica day is walked in every month of it. Manita peć opens for the season in spring and closes in autumn, so a winter visit is the canyon only.

How Much It Costs: Tickets, Hours and the Cave

Entry is ticketed at the canyon car parks, and the price moves with the season in three bands. In 2026 an adult day ticket is 5 € from November to February, 8 € in March, April and October, and 10 € from May to September. Children aged 7 to 18 pay half, mountaineering-association members, students under 25 and over-65s pay 4, 6 or 8 €, and a car adds a 3 to 5 € daily vignette.

The multi-day passes are the ones to buy for a Starigrad base. A three-day pass, valid over five days, costs 10, 16 or 20 € by season, a five-day pass, valid over seven days, 15, 24 or 30 €, and an annual pass 60 €. Tickets bought in the park's web shop carry a 5% discount.

Manita peć is a separate ticket, 5 € for adults and 2.50 € for children, and the cave is open from 1 April to 31 October. The Underground Secrets visitor centre in the old bunkers near the entrance costs the same and stays open into November. Opening hours run from early morning to evening in summer and shorten in winter, and the park publishes the exact times by month.

Getting to Paklenica

The park entrance is at Starigrad-Paklenica on the coast road, the Jadranska magistrala, between Zadar and Karlobag. Zadar and its airport are about 45 km to the south, roughly 45 minutes by car, and the coastal buses between Zadar and Rijeka stop in Starigrad. From the village the canyon mouth is a ten-minute drive or a 4 km walk uphill.

Zadar is the airport for Paklenica, with seasonal flights from the UK and connections through Zagreb, and Split is a two-hour drive if the flights work better. Our National Parks week is self-drive, with car rental on request: Zagreb to Plitvice at the start, then down to Starigrad, Šibenik and Makarska.

Where to Stay

Starigrad-Paklenica and Seline are the walkers' bases: small coastal villages with hotels, apartments and campsites strung along 5 km of shore, ten minutes from either canyon. Our week sleeps in Starigrad, which puts the car park within a 4 km morning transfer and the sea within a five-minute evening walk. The park's own campsite at the canyon mouth opens from spring to autumn.

Hikers bound for the summits stay at the Paklenica mountain hut at about 480 m, the only bed inside the park, with dormitory places and meals in season, two hours' walk from the car park. A night at the hut turns the summits into two sane days instead of one long one, and it is the reason the hut exists. Book it through the Croatian Mountaineering Association; it fills on summer weekends.

What to Pack

The canyon day needs less than a mountain day and more than a beach walk. Trail shoes with grip for the polished limestone of the valley path, a 25 to 35 litre pack, and a sun hat and sun cream for the canyon floor, which has no shade until the trees above the hut. Carry two litres of water per person, because the only tap is at the hut. Poles help on the 1,050 m of descent.

Two items are specific to this park. A warm layer for Manita peć, which is 9°C inside in July, and cash, because the cave ticket and the car-park entrance do not reliably take cards. Swimwear stays in the car: the sea at Starigrad is ten minutes from the canyon mouth.

Ready to Walk Paklenica?

The canyon day is the heart of our National Parks week, and the week is self-guided, with hotels booked, transfers arranged and luggage moved. Send an inquiry with your dates, and the team will tell you which departures still have room.